CJ Nickolas remembers what he felt when he won silver at the 2023 World Taekwondo Championships in Baku, Azerbaijan.

Disappointment.

He’d beaten Egypt's Seif Eissa in the semifinals but lost to Italy's Simone Alessio in the final round. After the match, he quickly went from the competition mat back to the athlete holding area, thinking could he have fought more or done something different.

“In that moment, I was just kicking myself, and I couldn't believe that I gave up that moment,” Nickolas recalled. “It has been eating at me for a while, it's been eating me since then.”

He was feeling down until his support crew — his mom Denise Nickolas, his teammates and his coach Paul Green — came to lift his spirits. It’s not the result but the person you are when you walk off the mat, they told him. Emotional after heading their words, he started to cry. 

“It's very hard. And it's very scary to be 100% of yourself, like raw, and take the risk of giving everything that you have with the potential of failing,” Nickolas said. 

Afterward, he’d come to appreciate his performance and how massive it was for United States taekwondo — it was the first time since 2009 an American man had won a world medal in the sport.

A few months later he’d win gold at the 2023 Pan American Games in Santiago, earn his No. 2 rank in the men’s 80kg weight class and qualify for the Paris Olympics — the whole time thinking about his last match at the 2023 World Championships. 

“I keep that moment in the back of my head when I'm training and when I'm planning so that I can make sure that that doesn't happen anymore, especially here [at the Olympics]," he said. "I get one opportunity to do this.”

Before CJ Nickolas had his breakout year on the world stage, he had Brentwood, California. 

He started taekwondo when he was 3 with his mom, aunt and sister. Then his mom briefly got married to the instructor, Edward Givans, and even after the marriage ended, Givans continued serving as both a father and a coach to him.

With the support of his “chosen family,” he’d go to school and then practice taekwondo until 8 or 9 p.m. with Givans, who had a militaristic style of training.

“One of the main things that he always used to say is, don't let anybody work harder than you in the room, or when you're fighting or anything. And that stuck with me for a long time,” Nickolas said. “And now, it's a staple of my strategy when I'm fighting.”

Watching the sport as a kid, he remembers seeing old-school taekwondo. They had long brawls with bursts of exciting moves decided by referees, he remembered. At around age 10, electronic systems began to keep score and the sport became more tactical.

Nickolas admired athletes like Turkey’s Servet Tazegul, Great Britain's Aaron Cook and American TJ Curry, who is also from the Bay Area and was his coach for a time. The “crazy” moves they executed influenced his approach to fighting.

“I had the foundation of that exciting taekwondo, and I got the new stuff," Nickolas said. "So, I have a mix of those two games. That's what people say a lot.”

Don't let anybody work harder than you in the room, or when you're fighting or anything.

Nickolas is used to being on the away team. But he loves to silence a crowd. 

At competitions in Europe or South America, the audience roots for their home athletes. He starts each match as the American athlete — until the moment he fights.

“I love turning a crowd in my favor,” he said. 

He’s become known for his speed, kicks and a double-reverse spin-hook kick to the face, sometimes called the “CJ.” 

“I'm one of the athletes that's bringing that excitement back to the game and doing stuff that people have never seen. So, it's cool, I like it. I love it that I have my own style that is me,” he said. 

Nickolas plans to bring that energy to Paris, even after fracturing his forearm in May at the Pan American Championships.

Recovering from setbacks is nothing new to Nickolas. In 2020, he had corrective surgery for a heart condition.

Since breaking his arm, Nickolas has been training in a cast. He returned to fighting on a recent Olympic simulation day and learned again how far he can push.

“It takes going to that place, getting injured, getting hurt, and being in those situations, to learn how strong you are and how far you can push yourself and that's the beauty,” he said. “That's one of my favorite things, that I think that's what keeps pulling me back to this sport in general, is being able to explore how far I can take myself as a human being.”

On YouTube, he posts clips of his high kicks paired with songs and vlogs about where he’s competing. In one clip, he does a split in practice before it flips to James Brown doing a split. In another, he does sandpit training to “Sun is Shining” by Bob Marley.

That merging of music and sport provides a window into what drives Nickolas as a person.

Music is one of the few things that can rival taekwondo in importance for him. His interest started when his aunt gave him an iPod Shuffle loaded with the music of Michael Jackson and Stevie Wonder when he was about 8. He was also inspired by her time on his church’s praise team.  

He’s since collected 300 records and counting from every place he’s visited, with plans to add more in Paris. It’s a passion and a creative outlet. He writes, sings and records music about his day-to-day struggles in life and training. 

“Music is the only other thing that I love as much as taekwondo in this life. There hasn't been a day that I haven't listened to music,” he said.

In the middle of one of the hardest training weeks of his life, Nickolas turned 23 — about three weeks before he competes in the preliminary round of the men’s 80kg Olympic tournament. 

He had nothing planned except to get some rest. Soon he’ll be in Paris for his first Olympics — where nearly every athlete is on the away team.

This time he’ll have an audience. He’ll have his mom, his dad who first coached him, and half of his family. Some of them have never seen him fight in person or outside the U.S. 

Nickolas knows celebrating can wait.

He’s sacrificed for this moment, and he knows that this moment is bigger than just him. He knows his success could start a new chapter for taekwondo in the U.S.

“I know that a lot of people are watching me, that were me when I was a kid, and it's inspiring to see someone that looks like you,” he said. “Someone that you've seen in person, someone that's from an area like you succeeding and doing something that someone hasn't done in a very long time.”

For Nickolas, success would mean winning his first Olympic medal and improving since the 2023 World Championships. It would mean feeling thankful for his moment.  

“I'm looking forward to standing on top of the podium with a gold medal the most,” he said. “100% I think that I could die happy. That would be it for me.”